r/topre

I have an odd question, and I barely know what I’m talking about or how to explain it, so please bare with me.

I bought a Realforce R3 full-sized keyboard a few years ago, and the keycaps felt one of a kind. They had a thick, mushy feeling to them that’s hard to describe. They felt like some real thought and investment went into their design.

I then assumed that this was the quality of all Realforce keycaps, and bought another set from MechanicalKeyboards.com (I’m in the US)

However, the keycaps I got felt thin, cheap, and plasticky. Totally unlike the original ones that came on the board.

My question is- is there somewhere one can purchase keycaps of that original quality, or are they all lower quality now in today’s world? I’ve seemingly looked everywhere and it almost feels like you just need to buy another $300 keyboard to strip it of its caps if you want that same quality.

Is there a third party out there making those thick mushy keycaps?

After getting HHKB Hybrid Type-S, I'm totally in love with Topre and capacitive keyboard. Tho I already had Hansung gk893b capacitive keyboard, it feels totally different.

Now, I want to buy one more Topre keyboard especially from Realforce series. The only problem is they are using a same Topre switches so it could be buying another Type-S keyboard. They do have a normal version but all of them only available in Japan and never tried Realforce keyboards before.

As I'm selling several mechanical keyboards and my first capacitive keyboard or gk893b, Realforce could be next or HHKB Hybrid normal version if I cant find an option. I have no issues with HHKB Hybrid but it would be nice to have a proper TKL keyboard for working. Surprisingly, Japanese version have many options including non-Silent version which is NOT available around the world even for R4 series.

Since there is no way to test it in person, I have no idea how it sounds and feels like especially since there aren't any videos of Realforce R4 with non silent switches. It would be nice to have a non silent version but not sure as I might disappoint and regret it. Noise is not a big deal since I'm using it alone all the time.

But regardless, I have no idea how non silent switches sounds like on R4 series and I wonder if any of you have thoughts about it?